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As the story goes, the Phillips-Kane Band was at the height of their popularity in the late 1980s when the band unexpectedly dissolved after the suspicious and untimely death of front-man Rick Phillips, who, as it happens, was also an amateur parapsychologist.

We join the main story some ten years later, several months after his widow and bandmate Molly Phillips (Mackenzie Philips of One Day at a Time) has come out of retirement and gone on tour as a soloist. Along with her are her son Jack, her faithful Roadie Ned (Dave "Squatch" Ward), his wife (who is also Molly's manager), and their sons Clu and Carey. The focus of the show is on Molly's teenage daughter, Fiona (Cara de Lizia), who is obsessed with all things supernatural and seems to encounter them everywhere.

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While fairly obscure, So Weird was notable for being darker than any other Disney series, even to date (which isn't saying much, it still had the mood and camp of a 90s Disney Channel series) The first two seasons built a Myth Arc around Fiona's quest to understand the mysterious circumstances her father was involved in before his death by following in his footsteps and the tension this caused with her concerned brother and mother, ending when Cara de Lizia left the cast after the second season. For the final season, Alexz Johnson joined the cast as Annie Thelan, a friend of the family. A new arc was developed around her own mysterious childhood involving a spirit panther who followed her from town to town.

The series was complemented by a number of suspiciously apropos musical performances by Mackenzie Phillips and Alexz Johnson, such as "Another World" and "In the Darkness" (which also served as the show's theme song).

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As is policy for the Disney Channel, the show ended after 65 episodes.

Not to be confused with the Disney Channel's children's sketch comedy show, So Random!, nor with Canadian fantastic series Seriously Weird.

This series provides examples of:

Aborted Arc: With the departure of Cara deLizia in the third season, Fi's plot arc about her father in the afterlife and her brother living a past life as a knight (which Rebecca, the immortal girl, knows about since she lived long enough to see him) came to an end. For some reason, the individual arcs of all the other characters were dropped as well.

All There in the Manual: The soweird.com tie-in website had transcripts of discussions between Bricriu and his boss. People who knew about these found out about plot information before it was revealed in the show.

Ambiguously Human: In "Beeing There", there's a town of people who act like bees. It's never explained if they're bees who turned human or humans with bee-like mannerisms due to a genetic experiment. They just sell honey, buzz around, and entomb people in wax when they get agitated.

Astral Projection: "Escape" features a girl who leaves her body to avoid overbearing parents.

Badass Normal: Fi a teenage girl who regularly squares off against ghosts, demons, fae and monsters with nothing but her brains and sheer AUDACITY, and always comes out on top.

Call-Back: Fi would often be seen getting advice about her case of the week by chatting online with various people we had met before, including friends from her home in Colorado, relatives, and people she had previously helped.

Clip Show: "Encore" has Molly sing songs with clips playing over the top of them. It's also an excuse to show off the music that was written and previously was used only in small sections.

Empty Shell: James Garr, after losing his soul, is just a body walking around without anything personal essence inside it. That's why he speaks in the third person.

Enigmatic Minion: Bricriu is in league with "the powers of darkness," but is more or less and extremely selfish and amoral True Neutral - all he cares about is having fun. He claims that he tends to get bored with team evil since they're constantly all about "conquer and subjugate" without any real originality, so he doesn't care what Fiona does. In fact, every time he appears he cryptically tells Fiona information about the deeper mysteries she is investigating and claims to be willing to help her, but then doesn't really care about leaving her to die one way or the other and more or less comes off as scheming.

The Fair Folk: Bricriu is a textbook example - apathetic about humanity and caring only about the plans of the other spirits and, of course, his own enjoyment.

Fanservice: In "Shelter", the writers made Fi who was turned into a dog drink the antidote without reminding her she doesn't have clothes on. She eventually transforms back... without her clothes. The camera showed only her head and shoulders, but it was still pretty daring for a Disney show.

Greater-Scope Villain: Bricriu hints that Fi's father was messing with some beings from the spirit world and they were the ones that killed him.

The Greys: Most of the aliens seen throughout the show are of this variety; short and grey and the strange fingers etc.

Guile Hero: Fi's greatest weapon against the supernatural baddies she encounters is her wits.

In Bricriu's first two appearances she outsmarts him. In the first she figured out his name and in the second, Fiona figures out he's up to something worse than he claims partway through the episode, but also realizes she can't figure out what he's planning and instead resolves to try to counter it at the right moment.

Fiona's battle with the troll in the episode "Troll" was a Battle of Wits and knowledge.

HeelFace Turn: Jordan in "Avatar" and the video game inventor in "Banglebye". Fi is able to talk them around to the good side.

Human Aliens: The aliens in "Earth 101" that want to investigate the significance of Thanksgiving.

Manipulative Bastard: Via Exact Words and Blatant Lies, Bricriu pulls this in his second appearance. He possesses Molly and then convinces Fiona that Molly is in danger of dying and that only Bricriu's presence can save her, convincing Fiona to allow him to stay in Molly's body for 24 hours. This is technically correct. He doesn't tell her that the real reason he's possessing Molly is to keep Fiona from talking to a man who knows a small fragment of the truth about how her father died, whom the spirits plan to kill (which Bricriu needs Molly's body to do) - thus keeping Molly and Fiona away from the danger, technically. Thanks to his own actions, Fiona meets the guy anyway and the climax results with Molly, Fiona, and the man trapped in a warehouse Bricriu has set on fire. After realizing that fire is dangerous to mortals, Bricriu notes that he technically kept Molly out of danger for as long as he said he would (he only said the danger should be over in 24 hours) and splits, only taking the time to lampshade the whole thing as a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy and give Fiona some cryptic information.

Fiona leaves the main cast to live with other family members, It's ironic, since the cast was on a bus throughout the series.

Clu was also put on a bus when he left for college in the second season, but in his case The Bus Came Back for the third season.

Really 700 Years Old: The episode "Rebecca" dealt with Molly meeting a girl that looks exactly like her best friend when she was a teenager despite years passing by. The girl claims to be the daughter of Molly's friend. Turns out, it's the same girl. She says it takes her and her family a hundred years to age one year. Her family has to move around every few years to keep people from noticing, which is why Rebecca abandoned Molly. To twist the knife further? The flashback shows that the day Rebecca left was what Molly believed was her 13th birthday and made her a birthday cake and everything to surprise her. Cue her entering the house...and it's empty.

Science Is Bad: "Simplicity" stars a town inhabited by tiny elves that believe this trope. They shut down any and all forms of electrical machinery within their territory, including cars passing through. The Phillips escape by pretending to agree with them long enough to get out.

"Memory" plays with this idea, by presenting a town with everyone guarded and fearful—but it turns out that no one knows what's going on and everyone's been zapped by alien Laser-Guided Amnesia.

"Listen" involves a town where everyone develops Psychic Powers and covers up alien visitation.

"Boo" has a town where the dead rise and steal people away to the spirit world.

"Beeing There" has a town where everyone acts like bees and entomb people in wax when agitated.

The ending of "Werewolf" suggests that this is what a town will become to help a young werewolf lead a comfortable life.

Tulpa: Monster of the Week in the episode "PK (or Tulpa)". Fi meets a little boy who has created a tulpa that he believes to be an imaginary friend. Though invisible to everyone else, it is still capable of affecting others, becoming violent and injuring people around him.

Weirdness Magnet: It is eventually revealed that Fi, her father before her, and later Annie, act as "lightning rods" for the supernatural.

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